IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v49y2012i14p3177-3193.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“You Either Pay More Advance Rent or You Move Out†: Landlords/Ladies’ and Tenants’ Dilemmas in the Low-income Housing Market in Accra, Ghana

Author

Listed:
  • Godwin Arku
  • Isaac Luginaah
  • Paul Mkandawire

Abstract

Policy-makers world-wide are concerned about severe housing problems experienced in cities of the developing world. This paper examines the rental housing situation in Accra, Ghana. It presents findings of a qualitative investigation of the experiences of property owners ( n = 21) and tenants ( n = 23) in an informal private housing market that caters to the housing needs of an expanding section of Accra residents but lacks an institutional framework for regulating landlord/lady–tenant relations. The specific focus of the investigation is on perceptions of an intensifying tenancy management practice called the advance rent system. Overall, the findings reveal severe rental housing pressures and conflicting relations between renters and property owners rooted in asymmetrical perceptions regarding this system. The paper describes the conditions that shape landlords/ladies’ behaviours towards renters and their reactions to what are generally perceived as fraudulent tenure terms that property owners arbitrarily impose on tenants in this market. The paper concludes by suggesting policy recommendations to mitigate constraints plaguing a dysfunctional rental market system.

Suggested Citation

  • Godwin Arku & Isaac Luginaah & Paul Mkandawire, 2012. "“You Either Pay More Advance Rent or You Move Out†: Landlords/Ladies’ and Tenants’ Dilemmas in the Low-income Housing Market in Accra, Ghana," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(14), pages 3177-3193, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:49:y:2012:i:14:p:3177-3193
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098012437748
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098012437748
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098012437748?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Malpezzi, S. & Tipple, A.G. & Willis, K.G., 1990. "Costs And Benefits Of Rent Control: A Case Study In Kumasi, Ghana," World Bank - Discussion Papers 74, World Bank.
    2. Kenneth G. Willis & Stephen Malpezzi & A. Graham Tipple, 1990. "An Econometric and Cultural Analysis of Rent Control in Kumasi, Ghana," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 27(2), pages 241-257, April.
    3. Unknown, 2005. "Forward," 2005 Conference: Slovenia in the EU - Challenges for Agriculture, Food Science and Rural Affairs, November 10-11, 2005, Moravske Toplice, Slovenia 183804, Slovenian Association of Agricultural Economists (DAES).
    4. Arku, Godwin & Luginaah, Isaac & Mkandawire, Paul & Baiden, Philip & Asiedu, Alex B., 2011. "Housing and health in three contrasting neighbourhoods in Accra, Ghana," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(11), pages 1864-1872, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Irene Appeaning Addo, 2016. "Assessing residential satisfaction among low income households in multi-habited dwellings in selected low income communities in Accra," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(4), pages 631-650, March.
    2. Katherine V. Gough & Paul Yankson, 2011. "A Neglected Aspect of the Housing Market," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(4), pages 793-810, March.
    3. Nicholas Boamah, 2015. "The impact of households characteristics on the state of housing in the Offinso South Municipality (OSM), Ghana," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 17(6), pages 1251-1266, December.
    4. Pilar Lopez-Llompart & G. Mathias Kondolf, 2016. "Encroachments in floodways of the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 81(1), pages 513-542, March.
    5. Michelle Sheran Sylvester, 2007. "The Career and Family Choices of Women: A Dynamic Analysis of Labor Force Participation, Schooling, Marriage and Fertility Decisions," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(3), pages 367-399, July.
    6. DAVID M. BLAU & WILBERT van der KLAAUW, 2013. "What Determines Family Structure?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 579-604, January.
    7. Afanasyev, Dmitriy O. & Fedorova, Elena A. & Popov, Viktor U., 2015. "Fine structure of the price–demand relationship in the electricity market: Multi-scale correlation analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 215-226.
    8. Peter Viggo Jakobsen, 2009. "Small States, Big Influence: The Overlooked Nordic Influence on the Civilian ESDP," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1), pages 81-102, January.
    9. Billio, Monica & Casarin, Roberto & Osuntuyi, Anthony, 2016. "Efficient Gibbs sampling for Markov switching GARCH models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 37-57.
    10. Jan Babecký & Fabrizio Coricelli & Roman Horváth, 2009. "Assessing Inflation Persistence: Micro Evidence on an Inflation Targeting Economy," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 59(2), pages 102-127, June.
    11. Lloyd, S. P., 2017. "Unconventional Monetary Policy and the Interest Rate Channel: Signalling and Portfolio Rebalancing," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1735, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    12. Ichiro Fukunaga, 2007. "Imperfect Common Knowledge, Staggered Price Setting, and the Effects of Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(7), pages 1711-1739, October.
    13. Albertazzi, Ugo & Gambacorta, Leonardo, 2009. "Bank profitability and the business cycle," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 393-409, December.
    14. Beck, Thorsten & Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli & Merrouche, Ouarda, 2013. "Islamic vs. conventional banking: Business model, efficiency and stability," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 433-447.
    15. Jinho Bae & Chang-Jin Kim & Dong Kim, 2012. "The evolution of the monetary policy regimes in the U.S," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 617-649, October.
    16. McMahon, Rob, 2020. "Co-developing digital inclusion policy and programming with indigenous partners: Interventions from Canada," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 9(2), pages 1-26.
    17. George W. Evans & Seppo Honkapohja, 2009. "Robust Learning Stability with Operational Monetary Policy Rules," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Carl E. Walsh & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series (ed.),Monetary Policy under Uncertainty and Learning, edition 1, volume 13, chapter 5, pages 145-170, Central Bank of Chile.
    18. Lehtonen, Heikki & Kujala, Sanna, 2007. "Climate change impacts on crop risks and agricultural production in Finland," 101st Seminar, July 5-6, 2007, Berlin Germany 9259, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. Michael Pomerleano, 2011. "Developing Regional Financial Markets – the Case of East Asia," Chapters, in: Ulrich Volz (ed.), Regional Integration, Economic Development and Global Governance, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Gary Charness & Francesco Feri & Miguel A. Meléndez-Jiménez & Matthias Sutter, 2023. "An Experimental Study on the Effects of Communication, Credibility, and Clustering in Network Games," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1530-1543, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:49:y:2012:i:14:p:3177-3193. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.